


a princess of burning buildings

by goodbyechunkylemonmilk



Series: self-indulgent writing exercises [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Animal Death, Diary/Journal, Epistolary, F/F, Implied Relationships, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodbyechunkylemonmilk/pseuds/goodbyechunkylemonmilk
Summary: I’ve never been the kind of girl to keep a diary, even though you would probably argue that I should be, that I should find an outlet for my emotions other than being “self-destructive.” You might have a point. But that’s what you were supposed to be. Or: you were supposed to fix me, to make it so I didn’t need an outlet. If you had a diary, which you don’t because your every thought and feeling is suitable for public consumption, it would be about boys and class and Quidditch. I thought if I stuck close enough, some of that emotional tidiness would rub off on me.[Concept: letters Sirius wrote to James and promptly destroyed]





	1. Chapter 1

I’ve never been the kind of girl to keep a diary, even though you would probably argue that I should be, that I should find an outlet for my emotions other than being “self-destructive.” You might have a point. But that’s what you were supposed to be. Or: you were supposed to fix me, to make it so I didn’t need an outlet. If you had a diary, which you don’t because your every thought and feeling is suitable for public consumption, it would be about boys and class and Quidditch. I thought if I stuck close enough, some of that emotional tidiness would rub off on me.

I stole Regulus’ diary when we were younger. I thought it would be funny, though I don’t know why. She was in love with our tutor, in the way of needy little kids who imprint on everyone who’s nice to them. I suppose I expected there to be a lot about him, shaky odes to the depth of his eyes and the color of his hair. I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t have, but that’s what I feel most guilty about. I’d meant to make fun of her, but I never had the stomach for it.

So I don’t keep a diary. When I tried, I hated the look of it, all my bullshit laid out on parchment. This feels different, all the things I wish I could tell you, but won’t. You didn’t rub off on me, but I’m still terrified that I’ll rub off on you, that maybe I’m contagious.

Besides, and how small this is, how totally insipid, I want you to like me. The sensation was new to me when you met, that shaky, slightly queasy desire for approval. I didn’t need it, not like my parents; I just _wanted_ it, purely, unambiguously, for myself. I hadn’t known I could feel that way.

I want to be the kind of person who would tell you everything. I want to be the kind of person without much to tell. I want this to be easy. I want to be easy, to be someone not littered with tripwires and landmines.

How unrealistic.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn’t know I’d been unhappy until, suddenly, I wasn’t. What I mean is, I didn’t know I’d been unhappy until I met you.

For future reference, _this_ is what a cry for help looks like.

When you grow up like I did, consequences get confused. Correlation, cause and effect. Something that’s fine one day gets you screamed at the next. You develop a finely-tuned sense of danger that’s good for absolutely nothing, because there’s no logic to it. You get good at escape routes though; you learn to keep from being cornered.

It turns out you can get used to almost anything. Well, not _you_ , maybe. I’ve always thought you were a bit soft, a consequence of such an easy life. But maybe that’s just one of those little lies people tell themselves for comfort. I know it left me cold and brittle, but I would like to think it made me more capable, too, better equipped to cope with misery. I don’t know if I really believe that, but it’s what I have.

When we were very little, we couldn’t be trusted to behave, too young to understand what our parents wanted from us. For a long time, our world was limited to the house, the garden. We caught a stray cat there, if you can say you “caught” something that nearly scratched out your eyes and then retreated, out of reach, to a hedge from which it could watch you contemptuously. We coaxed it down over the course of several months, sneaking food outside in the pockets of our robes. I tried to tell you this story once before, and you acted like it was a metaphor, like I was the cat, slow to trust but worth the effort. You seemed to like your version of things, and the satisfying ending where two lonely little girls got a new plaything, so I didn’t tell you: the cat had fleas, and we must have brought them inside. I never saw it again. Stray cats roam, by definition; I don’t know for sure it my parents killed it. I don’t think it really matters, except to the cat. The point is the fear.

What I’m saying, you understand, is that I’m never going to be the person you want me to be, the person you’re trying to shape me into. I can’t be. You probably think I’m making excuses now, claiming I’m not responsible for what happened because of what happened to me. But that isn’t my point.

What I’m trying to say is, you’re waiting for me to turn into someone else. Well, not waiting. You’re many irritating things, but passive is not one of them. You think if you’re nice enough, careful enough, you can change me, reshape me in your image. You can’t. If that’s what you’re hoping for: stop. It’s a dead-end.


	3. Chapter 3

When I first met your parents, I was so jealous I thought I might choke on it. I was afraid that you would notice how strange I was being, but your normal and mine have always been very different. I couldn’t believe people really got to live that way, like something out of a book. It seemed selfish, for you to enjoy so much when others had so little. I thought you could have been a bit less happy, left something more for the rest of us. Maybe your parents could have hugged you just three times a day, bought you one fewer present every Christmas.

Your mother hugged me, too, when we met, and I didn’t know what to do with my arms, my hands, didn’t know where to look. She held on for a long time, and I knew then that you must have told them something about me, your damaged friend with the tough childhood and the unloving parents. I wanted to be angry, and I would be later, but I couldn’t hold onto that indignation in the moment, not with your mother holding me so tight I could barely breathe. Right then, if she’d asked, I would have told her any pathetic story she wanted, things I hadn’t even told you yet, things I still haven’t told you, things I will _never_ tell you. Your mother smells like lavender and freshly-laundered clothes. Is that the kind of thing you stop noticing if you’re allowed to be close to someone whenever you want? I wouldn’t know.

I’ll probably tell you that I left on my own, in some blaze of wanton destruction. It won’t be a lie, but it won’t be the truth, either. It shouldn’t have taken me by surprise the way it did. I’ve been preparing to leave ever since I first realized I could, but I wasn’t ready, still, somehow. I’m afraid of what will happen if I try to explain, of what will come out of my mouth if I open it.

I sat on the curb across the street and watched as the wards did their work, wiping the house from the landscape. I waited a little longer after that, not for anything in particular. If you spend enough time somewhere, you get attached, even if there’s no good reason. There was never a question of where I’d go, after. Of course it was you. It always has been.

The wards of your house recognize me as family, not as a guest. When your parents told me that, I said I had to use the bathroom and then sobbed into a hand towel for half an hour. I didn’t know a cleaning spell, so I hid it in the pocket of my robes and threw it out when I got home.

Once I walk in your door, this will be real. I thought it would feel better. I thought I would feel free. What I feel is small, and stupid, and alone. I don’t want to cry in front of your parents, so I’m lying under the rose bushes in your garden and gasping like a gutted fish, which gets annoying after a while, so that part of me is making this awful rattling noise and the rest of me is thinking, “Really?” My hands are barely even shaking anymore.

After being trapped in a five-girl dormitory for most of the year, I should relish my time away, but the truth is that I miss it. I think I would miss it even if I had something better to compare it to. You were the first good thing in my life. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person, I know that. I can’t believe I’m going to ask you for this, too.


	4. Chapter 4

It can’t possibly be like this for everyone. The surprise. You must know you’re going to do things before you do them, must not routinely find yourself in the middle of a tirade or a fight without totally understanding why. I’m afraid to ask. I don’t want to know for certain exactly how different I am from you, and I _definitely_ don’t want you to know. I would rather you think it’s all on purpose, would rather you think I’m a slightly worse person than I am, but in full control.

There’s something fascinating about it, though. You would never call me an optimist, but I’ve had to learn to find humor in the small things: the way my mother’s face slackens between words in her most hysterical fits, the overwrought darkness of the décor at home, the absurdity of finding myself in a fight with no understanding of how I’ve gotten there and no will to stop. It’s strange to inhabit your body, your mind, as a passenger, but there’s something to be said for novelty. Well. You take your wins where you can get them.

I don’t like the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching. Or, no. I like that very much, actually, maybe too much. That’s not something you’re shy about, probably because you don’t know you’re doing it. I envy that un-self-consciousness. No one would accuse me of tremendous self-awareness, but I have to exist inside myself in a way that you don’t. I have to keep a careful eye to keep from getting too out of control.

What I don’t like is the way you look at me when you _know_ I’m watching, right after I’ve said or done something I shouldn’t. I think you overestimate your influence on me, which is practically impossible to do. If I could change, I would, but some things are beyond even you. I didn’t understand that when we met, had a fantasy of living the kind of life you have. I thought if I might manage to stick close enough, watch and learn. I didn’t know yet that some stains don’t wash off. So I’m sorry if I misled you, made you think you’d have an easier time of it. And now we’re in too deep, I think. I hope. It must be frustrating for you, to have had normalcy within your grasp and then to see it sabotaged by a choice you made as a wide-eyed preteen with a penchant for picking up strays.

I have a good deal of practice disappointing my parents, so when I realized that my feelings for you had changed from that already untenable fixation to something less platonic, I didn’t care except to worry that you might find it distasteful. When I realized that you felt the same—to whatever extent it can really be said that we’ve ever felt the same—I felt guilty. How easy, how _neat_ , your life would have been. Maybe I’m flattering myself, overstating my own importance. Maybe if it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. But I don’t think so. I mean what I’m about to say in the kindest way possible: you’ve always been very conventional.


End file.
